A custom made tour is an independent trip plan designed and arranged just for you. An English speaking guide/driver will take you to look around Fukushima’s coastal area, giving you a first hand experience of the area where the nuclear disaster took place.

We can arrange tours for high-school/university students or for those researching the Fukushima nuclear accident and its social impact according to your request. We will try to arrange interviews, meetings, as well as permission to enter exclusion zone. → Read more.

Tours are planned and managed by Fukushima Prefectural Government in coordination with the two companies below:

Soso is the name of the northeastern region of Fukushima Prefecture. Despite the name, it is far from average and a wonderful place to be.

J-village a sports complex. There is a hotel with 200 rooms as well as 11 soccer fields. It reopened July 28th 2018.

Experiences with us

There has been a lot of media in this area, especially the red zone and we wanted to understand more about the disaster, what happened, how the community is repairing and what are the challenges. So it was excellent to find Real Fukushima tour. It is like being in our own documentary with real facts and up to date information. Our guide has lived in this area all his life and his knowledge, passion and scientific explanations were invaluable. It is impossible to describe the area, especially the red zone, and how people have been affected and the extent and scale of the disaster. It is a humbling experience and I recommend that it is a must do to really appreciate what happened and now the cleanup and ongoing issues and successes are happening in Fukushima. Thank you, this tour is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life.→TripAdvisor

Donna V Australia

I can highly recommend this tour. The guide, being a local, has expert knowledge of the area and events and is very good at communicating in an informal and easy way.
The tour gives, in my opinion, an unsentimental and true story of what happened in Fukushima and how it affected people living there. As such it is an important part of contemporary history, not only for Japan, but for the rest of the world as well.→TripAdvisor

Børge A Norway

The official tour of Fukushima exclusion zone and around. This is as real as you can get to see what actually is happening inside the area years after the earthquake strucked.
The tour provides details and information of what had happened, what is happening now in the area.
The tour took 4-5 hours, during that time you will be exposed to certain degree of radio activity area. In which is not dangerous at all.
If you have seen Dark tourist, and interested in coming to see the area by yourself, don’t be afraid nothing as dramatic as in the show. This is the real thing, real fact, real lives, Real Fukushima.→TripAdvisor

Kritacorn P Thailand

I was lucky enough to find a tour company that is run by local residents trying to encourage people to see the real Fukushima, as opposed to what was depicted on the Dark Tourist show. If you wish to try with them please book your tour here, don’t forget to say that Travel Geek sent you 🙂 … and no I’m not on commission!→ TravelGeekUK

Travel Geek UK United Kingdom

It was an absolutely impressive and recommendable tour. The guide was so awesome and she spoke English very well. Fukushima and also the contaminated area have such a nice nature. I think it is very important to show this place to get the people to know about the risks and consequences of nuclear power. And that is why it is necessary to keep some of the buildings and places to memories the people, also after the evacuation zone will be recultivated again. But especially for foreigners I want to say Fukushima is not just a nuclear contaminated zone it is also a really nice place to stay with beautiful nature and very cordially citizens.

Maximilian Jentzsch Germany

It was quite a surreal feeling being in the evacuation zone. It is one thing to hear about it on the news, but quite another to actually experience this on the ground in person. I was shocked at how deserted the evacuation-lifted areas were, especially Namie. Driving through the evacuation zone was quite eye-opening, and really gave me a sense of what is currently unfolding in the area in regards to the ongoing radiation issue. The one place that really left an impression on me was the town of Namie, mainly due to the fact that you can feel that people suddenly packed up and left one day, leaving behind everything. It is actually quite eerie.

Lincoln Krutulis Australia

Karin has a masters degree in International Politics, speaks excellent English and was eager to welcome me to the Evacuation Zone and show me around. She had recently opened the Lantern House, a Bed & Breakfast guest house, right in Odaka (小高町), just 15 kilometers from the nuclear power station. Over the course of the following weeks we carefully planned my visit to the Evacuation Zone. I had never expected to run into someone as dedicated and knowledgeable as Karin. She knows all the data, all the places and all the people. When I came up with the idea to maybe do some short interviews with former evacuees, she arranged a meeting with Katsumi Anbe, a city government official who was the head of the Odaka ward education office before the disaster. On October 15, 2017 I stepped off the train and was picked up by Karin, who drove me to the Lantern House. I fell asleep in a big, beautiful Tatami room and was greeted by a home-made breakfast early in the next morning.→One Man, One Map

One Man, One Map Germany

Access

To join our standard tour, please come to Odaka Station. To join our custom-made tour, please come to Haranomachi, Odaka, Namie, or Tomioka station. We will pick you up there. If you have JR Pass, take Shinkansen to Sendai and come down to Odaka by local train. It will take three hours from Tokyo. If not, take a JR train from Tokyo on the Joban Line for the cheapest. The railway between Tomioka and Namie is closed but you can use the interim bus service below. Google and Jorudan cover the bus timetable.

Points of Interest

Usage: Open this webpage with your smart phone and click square icon on the upper right corner of the map above. Your google map app will navigate you to the Points Of Interest.

Driving through Red Zone

You are not allowed to enter red zone, but you can pass through it on designated roads. The roads marked with a blue or green below are open to the public and can be used without special permission. Walking and riding a bicycle, motorcycle, or other two-wheeled vehicle is banned. However, motorcycles over 125 cc can use the Joban Expressway marked in green. (Please note that the expressway is a toll road.)

Bus across the red zone

JR Joban Line extends from Ueno station in Tokyo to Sendai station in Miyagi through coastal area of Fukushima. Train services between Tomioka and Namie are expected to resume in March 2020. Until then, interim bus services go up and down eleven times a day between the stations as follows. Italic typeface below shows the bus timetable (in Japanese here) and the other times are part of the train timetable that connects to the bus during weekdays. Please confirm the times on Google, Jorudan or HyperDia.

Since the bus is a part of JR train services, you can use JR tickets/pass to ride. The fare between Namie and Tomioka is 410 yen.

Northbound

Southbound

*times in bold italics are by bus

Radiation Dose near the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant

The aerial radiation at the JR Odaka Station (15 km from Fukushima Daiichi NPP) is about 0.13 microsieverts per hour(μSv/h). It is a little over the level of New York but lower than Rome. Although it is much higher in parts of our region, your accumulated dose will be under 7μSv after our 4-5 hour tour. It is 5-10μSv for one time dental x-ray and more than 50μSv for a one-way flight from Tokyo to New York. We lend you a dose meter during our tour so that you can check your accumulated dose. The world average radiation dose from background radiation per year is 2400 μSv. Researchers say if you receive 100,000 μSv your death rate of cancer would rise 0.5% in your lifetime.

Radiation maps

Chart of Radiation Doses

Posts

The tragedy of the 2011 Tohuko earthquake should never be forgotten for the people who lost their lives, for the people who were displaced, and for the long-lived consequences at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The communities on the coast of Fukushima Prefecture have experienced unbelievable hardships from tsunami destruction, nuclear contamination, and afterwards, […]

Fukushima Prefectural Government declared 100% renewable energy one year after the nuclear accident. It means the prefecture will produce energy by the renewables more than it consumes by 2040. Soma IHI Green Energy Center Japanese engineering giant IHI launched the Green Energy Center in Soma City, intending to integrate solar power generation with business development. Electricity generated […]

Last March I had the sincere privilege of touring the Fukushima exclusion zone and surrounding communities with Mr. Sasaki. He was kind enough to take time out of his very busy schedule on fairly short notice to give me a very thoughtful and candid tour of the area and for this I am deeply appreciative. […]

Travel around Fukushima

Fukushima Prefecture has had a lot of attention in the media for the past five years, and not for the right reasons. I realised how little information there was on the Prefecture in English (except for that relating to 3.11) when trying to research for my dissertation at university, so I am really happy to have the opportunity to help my readers rediscover Fukushima.
→ Visit Rediscover Fukushima.

Rediscover Fukushima https://rediscoverfukushima.com

We were there before, during, and after the triple disaster and it really hurts to hear people have an uneducated view of Fukushima.
→ Visit This is Fukushima.